


The Shadow

by Rebeliz



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27331216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebeliz/pseuds/Rebeliz
Summary: Request: Where R is part of the Avengers and her and Carol have been friends with benefits for a while now but nobody knows. Carol keeps telling R that she wants something more serious and R keeps turning the idea down. One day R is kind of flirty with someone else and Carol snaps.This started as a one shot in my tumblr page, and is now an ongoing series.
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Natasha Romanov, Carol Danvers & Reader, Carol Danvers/Natasha Romanov, Carol Danvers/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 101





	The Shadow

…

Closing your eyes, you can’t help but smile as your legs tingle and the last wave of your latest orgasm washes over you. Feeling sated and happy, you try to bring your breathing back to normal. 

God. That was good, more than good. That was excellent and you can’t stop smiling. 

A very dull and pulsing pain begins to form between your legs, and you know the sensation will remain for the next couple of days. 

“That was amazing.” You chuckle with a dry throat, and the action makes you blush. Your throat is dry because you were loud, but Carol did bring all her best moves tonight.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” She sits up and the tone of her voice has you opening your eyes with a start, because she doesn’t sound happy at all. 

The icy tone and the sight of her back make you take a second look, and a heavy weight settles in the pit of your stomach out of nowhere. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” You ask her as you sit up too and a cold breeze waves inside the room. You press yourself against her back and look up to find the window opened and the curtains waving in with the strong wind. 

The room is no longer warm, and it’s not solely because of that opened window. 

You shiver involuntarily as you wrap her arms around her waist from behind and press your lips on her shoulder blade in a soft kiss. However, she’s tense and she doesn’t react to your touch. 

“Why don’t you want to date me?” She asks you and you might stop breathing for a few seconds. 

Her voice sounds so small, and so hurt that you immediately feel her pain squeezing your heart in a tight grip. Her question leaves you breathless and frozen in place. 

You want to give her what she wants, you do, but - 

\- you realize that you’re still hugging her and you pull back from her, and leave her bed in a hurry. 

You didn’t want to get into this tonight. Not tonight. She just came back from a mission that took her away from the Compound for almost ten days and you were missing her. 

You wanted to catch up with her, you wanted to be alone with her for a little while, you wanted to make love to her and kiss her for every minute that she was away. 

Besides, you have a party to attend and you haven’t even begun to get ready. You'll be late already. 

You can feel her eyes on you as you head to the insuite and you hate it. 

You can’t continue to do this to her. It’s not fair and she deserves so much better. 

When you emerge from her bathroom she’s waiting for you. She’s sitting on the edge of her bed and watching you intently, as if you hold her heart in your hands and maybe you do. 

“We’ve talked about this,” you tell her as you pick up your discarded clothes from the floor in a hurry, but when you look back up she’s still watching you. “I like what we have here. Don’t you like what we have here?”

“Of course I like it,” she tells you softly. Her eyes lock you in and she’s so beautiful that you instantly want to give in. God knows that you’re too weak to resist her, but you have to. You can’t do this to her - you can’t tie her to you like this. 

You put on your clothes in a rush and when she finally stands up to walk closer to you, you feel like you should run out. You’re good at that. 

However, she’s still wearing the strap you used and the toy between her legs is bouncing with every step that she takes, and you walk towards hers out of instinct too. 

You undo the harness for her and you let it fall to the ground, all the while she just looks at you with downcast eyes. 

Your chest aches, and swallowing becomes painful. God. You really didn’t want to get into this tonight. 

Still, you try to bring things back to normal because you want to keep seeing her, you want to be able to still kiss her in the mornings when no one is looking. God! You want to make her laugh when that door is closed just so you can kiss the smile off her face. 

You really don’t want to lose her. Not her. 

“Then what’s the problem?” You ask her gently because she’s expecting you to keep this conversation going, even if you refuse to look into her eyes. 

You’re running out of excuses for her and you really need her to move on from the topic because you can’t give her anything more than what you already have. You don’t know how to and this must be the dozenth time she’s brought it up. 

“I want to date you.” She enunciates and you do look up then. 

She tells you this as if you hadn’t heard her before, as if she's speaking a foreign language and she wanted to make sure that you understand what she’s saying. 

You hate her condescending tone and you’re tempted to roll your eyes but you refrain from it. 

You really don’t know how to move on from this. You don’t know how to convince her that this is for the best. You’re at a loss because you don’t want to lose her. 

“I like you and I want to be able to kiss you and hold your hand in front of our friends. What’s wrong with liking what we have in front of the others?” She asks and her nakedness is really distracting, but not enough to not make you see that she’s pushing this. 

“Carol, come on. Don’t do this.” You place your hands on her chest before pressing yourself closer to her. You need her to understand you without you revealing things that make you cringe just thinking about. 

“I obviously like you too but I also like what we have here, just the two of us.”

“Why can’t we have this with the rest of the team knowing?” She practically pleads and you step back from her space. She’s pushing and she knows it, and you don’t want to lose her. 

“Why can’t this be enough for you?” You want to know and she grabs a hold of your arms as an impulse, her eyes turn hard as she pulls you closer but you react too, and you push her away with a not so gentle push of your own. 

“Because I feel like a dirty little secret!” Her voice seems to echo in the otherwise quiet bedroom, and your heart practically breaks at seeing so much hurt reflected in her eyes. But she’s frowning, her jawline taunt with so much that she’s holding back and you can’t take it. 

You know what you have to do. You know that you need to put a stop to this before it gets too messy. You love her, so much, and now you need to do what’s best for everyone. 

“Look Carol.” You take a deep breath as your heart shatters inside of your chest, and she takes a step back from you instinctively. Your coming rejection seems to seep through her even before you’ve said anything and you hate it, you hate all of it. 

“Don’t do this.” She begs with such a small voice and you have to look away before you take it back. 

A part of you always knew this would come to an end, one way or another. She wants more from you, she’s wanted more from you for a while and you… you just didn’t have the courage to put an end to it.

You don’t want it to be over and that’s the truth. You love her and you want her, you want to be with her but the moment the rest of the team knows about this… they won’t accept it because you lost their trust a while back and you’re not anywhere near getting it back. 

You feel your heart breaking but you swallow down all that hurt and meet her eyes again. This is the right thing to do. 

“You’re my best friend in this place.” You tell her, hoping that she understands, and maybe - just maybe you won’t lose her completely after this. “You’re the only person that I trust in the world right now. You know it and you know that I never meant to make you feel like this. This was supposed to be fun for both of us.” 

“Don’t do this,” she begs you and you lick your lips. You know she can smell your bullshit from a mile away but you just can’t give her something that you don’t know how to give right. 

You shouldn’t have let it come this far anyway. You shouldn’t have. 

“If this isn’t enough for you then we should stop.” You tell her and she takes a deep breath, her face hardening as she looks at you. “If you want more than this you’re free to get it somewhere else. I won’t stand in your way. I’m your friend.”

When you’re done speaking her face contorts in pure rage and you feel like a dagger has stuck itself on your chest. You need her to not need you like this. You’re not - you’re not right. 

“I don’t need you to tell me what I can or cannot do.” She growls in your face, making you take a step back with the sheer ferocity in her voice. 

You can’t date her, you can’t tell her that you’re ready for a relationship because you’re not, and Carol is too damn important for you to fuck it up like you did in the past. 

You thought you could have this and it’d be enough. But who would consider you enough. 

“Carol.” With a burst of confidence you push yourself back into her space and force her to look at you with your hands on her face. 

Maybe you can still salvage some of this, maybe she just needs to know that you won’t go anywhere if you two can keep this the way it’s been so far. 

“Why are you so afraid of them knowing?” She asks you gently and you almost kiss her, if only to keep her quiet. 

Her hands are so warm on your waist and the press of her fingers feels so real on your skin. She’s solid and safe, and you want nothing more than to be able to sink into everything that she is… but you can’t. 

“I’m not afraid,” you lie and she looks even sadder when she realizes that. 

You can’t tell her what happened. She won’t understand - no one else did. 

Your last and only relationship showed you the mess you really are when it comes down to romantic relationships.

Steve and Natasha know, they know that you can’t handle something real. They know because they were left to deal with the consequences of your mistakes not that long ago. Carol wasn’t on earth yet, you didn’t about her. 

The team knows though because it was your actions that lead the Avengers to lose a valuable member. They know because they were angry and because they care about you, even when you don’t deserve it. 

The look in Carol’s eyes is devastating and you can see all the pain that you’ve just inflected in her by lying in her face. 

“You know what?” She pushes you away but not unkindly. A part of you wants to hold on to her, ask her to think this through and to please understand you but you don’t. 

She’s always known when you’re lying, ever since you two met she’s always been keen on reading you and getting you even if you didn't say a word at all. 

She’s angry now and you want to curse yourself but you just look at her instead. 

“You’re right,” she tells you with a broken voice and you swallow with difficulty. “ I do want more and I am free to get it wherever I want.”

It feels definitive, she’s leaving you and with a pang in your chest you realize that you really did fuck this up too.

…

You stand in front of your mirror for long minutes. The idea of changing your outfit crosses your mind but you can’t keep wanting to impress a group of people that is already disappointed in you. They won’t think any different of you even if you showed up wearing a golden gown. 

You arrive late and the party is already in full swing. There are at least two hundred people crowding the floor and you didn’t even know that Steve knew this many faces, but here you are. 

You were supposed to be present for the inicial toast but you’re glad that’s out of the way now. You’re only here to make a quick appearance and then you’ll leave. You don’t want to be celebrating anything when you’ve just lost the one good thing that’s happened to you, in you don’t know how long.

“Glad you made it,” Steve says when he finds you by the bar. He still kisses your cheek the same way he used to, the only difference now is that he can’t look at you in the eye. 

You should have gone and found him, wish him a happy birthday and maybe offer him a present. You did none of those things. 

“Happy birthday, old man.” You smile at him hesitantly and he gives you a small amused smile in return. He pats your arm awkwardly and then he leaves. 

He hasn’t been able to be around you for longer than a minute since you returned, forget actually talking to you.

Steve and Natasha were the closest thing that you had to family. He was your big brother, always there for you, always on your corner and you let him down. 

Eli was a new addition to the team, younger than you and fun. God, she was fun. She had the ability to control the weather and she fell for you the moment you kissed her on the rooftop as a joke. 

You’d never been involved with someone before but you tried for her, you tried so hard to be what she wanted. She fell for you immensely and irrevocably, and you saw it. You couldn’t do anything to stop her feelings from growing the way they did. 

She was the strongest among you and you loved her too, just not as hard as she loved you. 

You still had fun together and she was the kind of person that could always put a smile on anyone’s face without even trying, including yours. 

You tried and you tried, but circumstances played a part in your fall out. You couldn’t be what she wanted and she couldn't depend on you because you’re simply not a dependable person. 

Your fights were always explosive and destructive. When she screamed, you screamed louder and when she said something particularly hurtful you’d just stop talking to her altogether. And you didn’t have to worry because she always came back to you with an apology in her lips and tears in her eyes, and it’ll be alright. 

When the roles were reversed and you spitted hateful things at her just to get her to leave you alone, you still didn’t worry because you never apologized. You didn't know how to. 

All you did was climb on her bed in the middle of the night and eat her out until she couldn’t function properly anymore, but you never apologized.

When she told you that the X-Men had tried to recruit her, she asked you to give her a reason to stay and you couldn’t. You knew what she wanted to hear and you loved her, but you didn’t want her to stay because of you and you weren’t ready to sacrifice everything you’ve found for her.

It was downhill from that moment on. You could see that she was fading away right before your eyes and you wanted her to be happy but you didn’t want her happiness to become your responsibility, you weren’t ready for that. 

Eventually she grew tired of being - whatever she was for you. 

Everyone saw it too. Steve asked you to fix things and Natasha told you to think about what you were doing. 

But you didn’t know what you were doing, you weren’t ready for that kind of relationship, you weren’t ready to be with someone no matter how badly you wanted it. 

By the time you finally left, she was already a shell of the person you once knew. When you came back she was gone and Steve was disappointed in you for running and you still couldn’t master an apology, not even for him. 

“There you are,” Natasha’s voice fills your ears and you look to your left to see her standing next to you. She still smiles at you the same way she used to and you still feel undeserving of her love. 

“How was the toast?” You ask her and she hums as she steals your beer and takes a generous sip. 

“It was fine,” she says as she gives you your beer back. When you meet her eyes you’re instantly thrown because she’s giving you that look, the one that means that she knows everything you’re trying to conceal. It makes your skin prickle. “I thought you weren’t gonna show up.”

“I almost didn’t,” you admit and she grins at you. 

Natasha is the most important person in your life. She’s always loved you, no doubt about that, but she’s disappointed too. You became her little sister, and she became protective of you. 

The team would have done anything for you, they loved you and you fucked that up too. 

“Something happened earlier?” She asks but you’re under no pretense here, you know that she knows exactly what you and Carol have been up to. The only reason why she hasn’t said or done anything is because once upon a time she loved you fiercely enough to put herself on the line for you. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” you retort and she pins you down with a hard glare.

She struggles with what to say for a moment but then you see her deflating and she just ends up taking another sip from your beer before she squeezes your shoulder lightly.

“Just be careful, okay?” She says and you nod rigidly. 

You try to mingle, you speak with a few people but you can only do it for a couple of minutes before you’re walking out to the spacious balcony with the first bottle of liquor you could find behind the bar.

On your way there you spot Carol laughing at something that Steve is saying and your heart aches at the sight of them. She’s your best friend, she’s come to know you better than anyone else has and yet the sight of her laughing with Steve makes you irrationally jealous. 

That’s your big brother, the one guy that now can’t stand you, but Carol seems to fit right into the team. She looks at home and the longer you stare the more you realize that you might not belong here after all. 

You down drink after drink but you can’t get drunk, not even a little tipsy and it’s all thanks to Hydra and the dozens of experiments they ran on you to make you into the perfect weapon they wanted you to be. 

You don’t know why you keep doing this, there is nothing after you anymore, you’re free of them but you know that deep down you haven’t assimilated it. The thought of being whoever you want to be is still a foreign concept to you. 

You know that your life's your own now, the Avengers saved you all those years ago. You are no longer a weapon of Hydra, they have no claim over you anymore, there is no one keeping you on any leashes now. 

You’re free. 

But they still made you who you are, didn’t they? You still are that subject that survived their crazy experiments. You’re still a weapon, even if you’re using your abilities to do good now, even if you call yourself an Avenger. 

You’re still the Shadow and you’re still that destruction weapon that they created you to be. You destroyed your relationship with Steve, with Natasha and now with Carol too. 

You know that the only reason why you’re still here is because of the things that you can do but the Avengers don’t trust you, not anymore because that’s what you do, that’s what you are. You are destruction and that’s all there is in your path. 

“You look like you could use some company,” a woman says and you’re already smiling even before you see her face. 

“Jessica Jones.” You smile and she rolls her eyes when you go for a hug. She doesn’t return it but she’s smiling when you pull back. 

“Why are you so moppy? I thought this was a party.”

“The party is in there. There’s only booz out there. You gotta choose.” 

She eyes the open door of the balcony but her smile grows bigger when she looks back at you. “I choose whiskey.” She shrugs easily and you click your tongue.

“My type of girl.” You serve her a drink and she downs it just like you would, without a flinch and no hesitation. 

In the distance fireworks are starting to go off, everyone seems to be celebrating this fourth and you two watch the lights of different colors alight the skies. 

“Things are still chilly, I take it.” She says conversationally and you huff, subtlety isn’t really her thing, nor yours. 

She only knows a lot about what happened because you crashed on her couch for a week when you ran away from here and you were still trying to get back on your feet.

“I haven’t officially apologized, so yeah.” You have another drink and serve her another one too as she nods.

You two are the only ones wearing leather and boots, if you were to walk inside the party again together you’d stand out like sore thumbs.

“You’re a shitty friend,” she tells you sincerely and you chuckle dryly. That’s more accurately than anything you’ve heard today. “But a good lay, I’d give you that.”

“Are you fishing for a repeat performance, Jones?” You tease her and she gets in your space, never one to shy away from flirting. 

“You’re the one that obviously needs to take her mind off whatever it is that has you like this.” Her hair flips with the wind and you place your free hand on her cheek.

You slept together twice years ago and nothing ever got complicated about it. She gets you in a way that no one else has ever been able to and you miss that. 

“Oh, honey. I’ve missed you too.” You tease her and she laughs but she still presses herself against you.

“You wish.” She laughs but her voice is just a tad lower than usual as she leans forward and you run your thumb on her cheek. 

You maintain eye contact as she continues to lean closer to you but even with all that bravado she’s the one to break first and you both burst out laughing.

You’ve missed her and her dark, almost always edging on inappropriate humor. This is going nowhere and you both know it, but you still test the waters every time you see each other. For good times sake, nothing more. 

“Seriously?!” Jessica jumps back from you and turns around, both of you on defensive mode at hearing the loud and raging voice.

“What?” You ask confusedly but Carol is glaring daggers at both of you. Damn it. She shouldn’t have seen this, you know hot it must have looked. 

“Calm down, glowy fists.” Jessica tells her and with a start you realize that Carol’s fists are glowing, and she’s a second away from blasting Jessica away. 

“Carol, what are you doing?” You rush to stand in front of Jessica and the moment she looks at you, you almost burst out begging for forgiveness because you know what she saw and what she might be thinking about it.

“So it’s me then?” She asks you brokenly and you shake your head. 

Whatever you thought you could salvage about this is now gone and you see it clearly. There is no going back, Carol is no longer just your best friend, you fucked that up too when you decided to get in her bed. 

“No, God! No, Carol. This isn’t what it looks like. I promise.”

“I’m not stupid!” She growls in your face and you notice Steve and Nat standing right behind her after hearing the commotion and you feel so incredibly exposed, so fucking vulnerable that you can’t stand it.

“Only you are!” You growl right back and she seems to flinch back but she’s not done. 

“Who is this?” Carol asks and you hear Jessica huff as fireworks alight the skies behind all of you.

“A friend.” You tell her. “An old friend, nothing more.”

You watch a lone tear roll down Carol’s cheek but just as you take a step closer to her she takes off before you can stop her. 

And suddenly you’re staring at the empty space where she was just standing and you feel like you can’t breathe. 

Silence follows and it lasts for a few long and tense seconds. Steve’s loud voice breaks through the quiet and you try to understand what he’s saying, but Carol just flew away thinking that you don’t have any feelings for her and you can’t focus.

Natasha is trying to mediate, her hand is on Steve’s chest and maybe you should say something, but Carol left - she left. 

She looked devastated and the memory of her hurt is enough to make you feel sick to your stomach. 

Jessica grabs your elbow and her confusion brings you back to this moment. Steve is still screaming, Tony is glaring and Natasha is shaking her head. 

You can’t do this to them again - you can’t - God!

Without a second thought you throw yourself from the balcony. The wind on your face feels almost liberating as you free fall but you reach the pavement faster than you anticipated and the ground breaks around you, dust and rocks jump around your feet where you land and you sprint. 

… 

The need to find Carol possess you and you look everywhere you can think of, but you don’t find her. 

Your cellphone continues to ring but you end up ditching it in the river before you make your way towards a small hotel in the outskirts of New York. 

Maybe this is for the best. Maybe she’ll be better off without you. Maybe you’ve disappointed them enough. 

…

You end up taking a job outside of the team, a job that takes you back to some of the things that you used to do so well when you were under Hydra’s thumb. 

When that goes well, you take another and then another. 

Three weeks go by and if it weren’t for the constant pain in your chest you’d almost be able to fool yourself into believing that the Avengers never happened, that Carol never happened. 

She finds you just when you’re about to hit your new target. 

“What?” You growl at her direction and you have to lower your rifle when she walks to stand right in front of you. 

Three weeks have also made you more than determined. You know what you need to do, which is why you were expecting her. 

“What the hell are you doing?” She demands to know and you sit back to take a better look at her. 

She’s wearing her uniform, her hair is shorter than the last time you saw her and she looks utterly pissed. The whole image only makes you want to run, leave her like she left you that day. 

“If you’re here to bring me in, do it. If you’re here to reminisce, you can go back the same way you came.” You tell her and her face morphs into pure confusion. You find her almost adorable, almost.

She doesn’t know this part of you. None of them do. 

“Is this what you’ve been doing? Gone on a killing spree?”

“It’s what I’m good at and the money is good.” You shrug and her mouth falls open but no words come out. “Do you feel like you don’t know me?” You ask her cruelly. “That’s because you don’t.”

“So this is what you are now?” She asks and you hate the softness in her tone, you hate that you can so obviously see that she still cares. 

“This is who I’ve always been. Do you still want to date me, honey?” You mock her and she flinches back. 

The truth is, she’s the most powerful weapon the earth has on it’s ranks and you are not about to be the reason why she leaves the Avengers, or earth unprotected ever again.

Somewhere deep inside of you, you always knew that neither Steve or Natasha would ever ask you to leave because that’s what family is for, right? Family is always there? 

You had to be the one to leave because you went from having Hydra control your every move to having the Avengers trying to shape you into something better, and because of that you have no idea of what you truly are. 

They’d do fine without you and you need to be on your own if you ever want to be able to find yourself. This is your path. You were meant to be alone. 

“Why are you doing this?” She asks and your heart breaks right along with hers, it seems. “You need to come home. Steve is about to lose his mind and Natasha hasn’t stopped looking for you. Tony is not doing any better either.”

“They don’t call me the Shadow just because I like to wear black clothes, honey.” You smirk at her direction and she frowns.

“Just please, come home.” She asks you but you catch movement in your target’s place out of the corner of your eye and you pick up your rifle in a rush. 

“What do you think you’re doing?!” She takes the rifle from your hands and if she were anyone else you’d fight her for it but you’re not delusional. The last thing you want to do is fight her. 

“Target’s walking away,” you casually tell her. You’ll find him later at his mistress’s house. You’ll get the job done tonight because the client already paid and you have a reputation to keep. 

“I’m sorry if I pushed too hard,” she says and the apology hits you just like a bullet would. 

Her words make you stomach hurt and you lose your breath, your eyes pool with unshed tears and your throat closes up. You don’t give into the devastating feeling that seems to want to devour you because you owe it to them to do this at least. 

“It wasn’t you, it was me.” You tell her with a mocking smile and her frown deepens. 

You need her to leave, you need her to realize that you are not a right match for her. You never were. 

“Just come back, please.” She begs and you jump to you feet. You need her gone now or you won’t be able to get through it. 

“You couldn’t just enjoy the fuck, could you?” You snarl at her and she flinches back. “I’m not going back and unless you’re here to take me there by force then you can leave me the fuck alone.”

You pick up your rifle and your bag from the floor and you force yourself to walk away without looking back. Your tears cloud your vision and your heart feels like it’s breaking in half… but you walk away.

...

  
  



End file.
